Cider producers and even a major bank are backing plans for a gigantic international cider festival to be staged in Plymouth.

The Herald revealed in August 2017 how plans were being made for the National Cider Festival to be held in the Ocean City.

Now the brains behind the festival is saying it has already received business interest from across the UK – and even around the globe.

International trade expert Linda Middleton-Jones wants to organise a festival for 2019, and, if it is a hit, host a much bigger international festival in 2020, helping to mark the city’s Mayflower 400 celebrations.

The event aims to showcase apples and cider and could be based on the successful Gijón cider festival held in northern Spain.

Miss Middleton-Jones, the Institute Of Export and International Trade’s (IoE) South West regional director, recently met organisers of the Spanish fiesta and is now formulating plans for a business mission to Gijón.

Now she says cider companies and a bank have been in touch to find out more.

Trade expert... Linda Middleton-Jones

“I’m very excited at the level of interest shown in putting together the UK’s first ever National Cider Festival,” she said. “We are looking to stage an ‘expression of interest’ meeting where UK cider producers, companies, and potential partners can register interest and look at sponsorship and marketing opportunities, etc.

“We already have a major bank looking to fund a delegation visit to Gijón, and will also bring a business group from northern Spain to the South West.

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“We are especially interested in UK cider manufacturers, sponsors, marketing experts, local businesses, and Government agencies to support Britain’s first ever National Cider Festival.

“We all enjoy a glass of cider and it’s a great produce, and high-time we promoted it on the national and international stages,” she added.

“Now is a good time post-Brexit to raise our national cider glass, and create the National Cider Festival 2019, and Plymouth and the South West is the ideal location to celebrate one of our finest national drinks.”

Miss Middleton-Jones is also managing director of her own company: Middleton-Jones and International Trade Matters, and a director on the Devon Chamber of Commerce.

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In June 2017 she helped organise a major symposium – South West Summit: Blueprint for a Global Britain – in Plymouth to help firms sell overseas, particularly once the UK has left the European Union.

Miss Middleton-Jones is a law graduate who specialised in international trade law and European law and has worked with chambers of commerce in Plymouth and Somerset and with the Government’s now defunct Manufacturing Advisory Service.

Dance... a cultural and arts programme is included with the Gijon cider festival (Image: Turismoasturias)

The Natural Cider of Gijón festival has been staged in the largest city in Asturias during the last week of August for several decades.

It features an extensive programme of activities including urban art, ephemeral art, a little cider and apple market, courses on cider pouring, a cider bus, visits to emblematic cider cellars, a cider pouring competition, theatre, cancios de chigre (traditional songs), food tasting and a presentation of prizes.